William Loh Jr. credits his career in the aviation industry to his pilot father. As a kid living on McCoy Air Force Base, Loh admired the hulking planes lined up in order on the tarmac. He watched his father, William, walk out of the house in a spotless U.S. Air Force uniform and go off to fly one of the mechanical miracles. He was amazed to see him set out for a flight to Alaska one day, then return the next. On Friday nights, the base became a symphony of sounds as various planes were tested and engines cleaned.

High over Germany , Robert Laubert began freezing to death in 1943 after already having survived World War II 's deadliest air battle known as "Black Thursday. " Grievously wounded, the young Army Air Corps staff sergeant and flight engineer was knocked unconscious on a bombing raid as he manned twin machine guns inside his B-17's top turret. The impact of exploding glass and metal tore away his oxygen mask and heavy mittens and his fingers turned to ice in the sub-zero temperatures.

Three years after the first B-2 stealth bomber was delivered to its Missouri base, the planes will be declared ready this week to take on nuclear and conventional combat missions. Thirteen of the huge, bat-winged bombers are stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base. The Air Force expects to have 21 B-2s in service by early in the next decade.

Neil Armstrong , the U.S. astronaut who was the first person to set foot on the moon, firmly establishing him as one of the great heroes of the 20th century, has died. He was 82. Armstrong died following complications from cardiovascular procedures, his family announced Saturday. When he made that famous step on July 20, 1969, he uttered a phrase that has been carved in stone and quoted across the planet: "That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind. " Armstrong spoke those words quietly as he gazed down at his, the first human footprint on the surface of the moon.

When a steaming softball off a hitter's bat struck Paul Malone square in the chest, teammates playing behind the 88-year-old pitcher gasped. They quickly checked on him. "I'm fine, fine," Malone said, waving them away, more annoyed that he didn't catch the thing. Malone flew 50 combat missions during World War II, dodging Nazi fire in a B-24 bomber, then volunteered for more duty in Korea and Vietnam. So getting pelted by softballs, which actually aren't all that soft, aren't about to make him cower.

At a time when Jim Crow grounded the dreams of black America, Lt. Charles P. Bailey soared through the skies. Flying during World War II with America's first corps of black fighter pilots, Bailey bombed foreign targets and blasted holes in domestic racism. A member of the 99th Squadron -- the now celebrated Tuskegee Airmen -- Bailey was born in Punta Gorda in 1918, three years after the first true fighter aircraft buzzed Europe. Though he imagined becoming a pilot, in his youth the friendly skies were white-only.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Eighty-six men have begun a one-year trial to determine whether the Marines will join Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets and Air Force Special Operations Forces in the military's special-operations forces. The Marine Corps Special Operations Command Detachment One was activated during a ceremony Friday at Camp Pendleton, where it will begin training this week. In October, the commando force will join Naval Special Warfare Group One in Coronado, Calif., to train with the Navy.

A French hunter, angry at low-flying army helicopters, blazed away with his shotgun and brought down a 4 1/2 -ton troop-carrying helicopter Friday. No one was hurt in the incident in which the SA-330 Puma made a forced landing after its fuel line was cut by the shotgun blast. The aircraft was flying over a forest at an altitude of about 100 feet when it was hit, the army said. The hunter, a resident of this area of southern France where helicopter pilots train for combat missions, was arrested by police, who said he had been drinking heavily.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Lt. Col. Howard Lee Baugh, who flew scores of World War II combat missions as one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, has died. Baugh died Saturday after a brief illness. He was 88. Baugh enlisted in the Army in 1942 and joined the all-black fighter group that trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He flew 135 combat missions as part of the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron in Sicily, Italy, during World War II. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award.

Michael Coats, 43, Discovery's commander, will be making his second shuttle flight. He served as pilot aboard Discovery during a 1984 mission. A Navy captain, Coats became an astronaut in 1978. He flew 315 combat missions in the Vietnam War and was awarded two Navy Distinguished Flying Crosses. He is married and the father of two.- John Blaha, 46, Discovery's pilot, will be making his first trip into space. An Air Force colonel, he joined the astronaut corps in 1980. After the 1986 explosion of the shuttle Challenger, Blaha was a member of an astronaut team that re-evaluated shuttle procedures for aborts and emergency landings.

THE VILLAGES - Retired Air Force Lt. Col. William "Bill" Brown, 83, Vietnam hero who was instrumental in the founding of The Villages chapter of the Distinguished Flying Cross Society, recalled being in the middle of combat on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1969. "We knocked out truck convoys two nights apart - 15 trucks on Feb. 19 and 26 trucks two nights later," recalled Brown, who was piloting a AC-119 gunship. "We'd hit the lead truck in the convoy, then knock out the truck at the rear to create the jam-up.

William Loh Jr. credits his career in the aviation industry to his pilot father. As a kid living on McCoy Air Force Base, Loh admired the hulking planes lined up in order on the tarmac. He watched his father, William, walk out of the house in a spotless U.S. Air Force uniform and go off to fly one of the mechanical miracles. He was amazed to see him set out for a flight to Alaska one day, then return the next. On Friday nights, the base became a symphony of sounds as various planes were tested and engines cleaned.

When a steaming softball off a hitter's bat struck Paul Malone square in the chest, teammates playing behind the 88-year-old pitcher gasped. They quickly checked on him. "I'm fine, fine," Malone said, waving them away, more annoyed that he didn't catch the thing. Malone flew 50 combat missions during World War II, dodging Nazi fire in a B-24 bomber, then volunteered for more duty in Korea and Vietnam. So getting pelted by softballs, which actually aren't all that soft, aren't about to make him cower.

Navy Quartermaster 2nd Class Jacquelyn Tuttle is learning about a whole new way of life thousands of miles away from her Eustis hometown. The 2005 Eustis High School graduate is on board the USS Harry S. Truman on its aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Oman, an area she began working in recently. Tuttle, 23, helps to support operations on the ground in Afghanistan as the aircraft flies combat missions. The Orlando Sentinel spoke with Tuttle via telephone about her deployment, her reasons for joining the military and how her hometown helps her stay motivated.

No doubt about it. In just 20 months, President Obama has accomplished more than any president since FDR. But he doesn't get enough credit for it. Not even from some of his friends on the left. That's gotta be frustrating, to Obama and members of his administration. And, indeed, that frustration boiled over in a revealing interview Robert Gibbs gave to Sam Youngman of The Hill newspaper. Admitting he watches "too much cable news," Gibbs deplored the constant negative carping he hears about Obama from commentators he dismisses as members of "the professional left.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Lt. Col. Howard Lee Baugh, who flew scores of World War II combat missions as one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, has died. Baugh died Saturday after a brief illness. He was 88. Baugh enlisted in the Army in 1942 and joined the all-black fighter group that trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He flew 135 combat missions as part of the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron in Sicily, Italy, during World War II. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award.

Fred A. Collins Jr. loved his country. Besides serving more than 26 years in the military -- including flying combat missions in World War II -- he also felt it was important to pass along his knowledge of American history to younger people in the hopes that they too would cherish its freedoms. The retired Air Force veteran and counselor for Boone and Winter Park high schools, died Tuesday of complications from surgery. He was 79. "He supported his country in many ways," his wife, Dorothy A. Collins, said.

I was a gunner on a B-24 that, along with the B-17, were America's heavy bombers for most of World War II. My crew flew combat missions in the Central Pacific, ending up on Okinawa from where we were bombing the Japanese home islands at the time that the war ended.The atomic bombs were dropped, the Japanese asked for peace, and as far as we were concerned, the war was over. We were going home. My crew had been in combat for more than 18 months; we had flown more than 50 combat missions; we had been very lucky.

CHICAGO -- During 13 months of rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Maj. Tammy Duckworth said, she did a lot of reading about American schoolchildren losing their "competitive advantage" with China. Encountering questions about her top-of-the-line prostheses while walking around a shopping mall, she said, made her ponder inequities in America's health-care system. And there was plenty of time to critique the Bush administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq, where she lost both legs and partial use of her right arm when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the Black Hawk helicopter she was flying over the Tigris River.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Eighty-six men have begun a one-year trial to determine whether the Marines will join Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets and Air Force Special Operations Forces in the military's special-operations forces. The Marine Corps Special Operations Command Detachment One was activated during a ceremony Friday at Camp Pendleton, where it will begin training this week. In October, the commando force will join Naval Special Warfare Group One in Coronado, Calif., to train with the Navy.